Dear Brothers and Sisters,

When I was little, I understood that growing up meant you grew up to be an adult 20, 30, 40… 70 years old. In my mind, growing up was a matter of age and size.

Of course, we adults understand that upgrowing is a little more subtle and meaningful than that.

Upgrowing is a matter of quality more than quantity – your age and your size are much less relevant than your maturity, attitude, behavior, the depth of your heart, your care about your people and your world, your understanding of the sacred human heart (tâm linh) in everyone…

In sum, growing up means understand the depth of the human heart and the depth of life.

If we use the quality of the heart as a measure of upgrowing, then we can see that most adults don’t grow up, they grow down instead – the older they are, the more greedy, hateful, and ignorant (tham, sân, si) they become. Thus, the adult world is always full of grabbing, conflict, and fighting.

Most adults don’t grow up; they grow down.

If you want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, be like a little child. Jesus said that.

Zen masters talk about the empty mind – the mind that doesn’t attach itself to anything. That is the mind of a child – pure, not attaching to anything other than the love of mother.

We adults attach to so many things – money, property, power, reputation, politics, religion, and all kinds of ISM. And we fight again each other for those things, very much like fighting for the drawing of a cake (bánh vẽ) on the sky. Dreams, Illusions, Bubbles, Shadows – Mộng huyễn bào ảnh (The Diamond Sutra, Kinh Kim Cang).

Can we have something without grasping onto (attaching to) it?

Spiritually speaking, maturity means staying on as a child, and growing up means unlearning the adult stuff, to go back as a child in spirit.

Can we do that?

You can have HAVE anything you need, just DON’T ATTACH to anything. That is a child’s heart. And that is truly a matured mind.

With compassion,

Hoành

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